I'm cutting off my hair.

I have a hard time letting go.

Like...a really really hard time.

Anything that has even the slightest sentimental value...say a ticket stub to a movie I saw with friends...or the petals from a rose I received for a good performance...any of that, I store away. I keep forever.

Part of the reason is that I'm afraid to forget. My grandfather had Alzheimer's and I guess watching him go through that really traumatized me. I'm so afraid to forget. I mean...sometimes, I want so badly to forget, I wish that forgetting could just come at will--but not for happy things. I am so scared of forgetting happy moments, of being happy in my life, of loving people and of being loved. I never want to forget those kind of things. So I hold on to fragments of memories to remind myself of the times when I was happy. I keep a time capsule...a...survival kit...just in case I ever need to remember.

That's not the only reason I hold on though.

I have abandonment issues. I guess, maybe, that's part of the reason, too. I hold on to people just as I hold on to things. I keep them. I store them away in my heart, sometimes not speaking to or seeing them for years at a time, but I still keep them. Always.

And the ones that I really love, I really want, I try to keep as close to me as the hair on my head.

But I believe I'm old enough now--

No...not old enough.

I believe that I'm wise enough now that you can't hold on to people that way. You can't hold on to them like keepsakes in a treasure box and preserve them forever. Like hair, people grow and even change.

I can't keep people in my life just to remember happy memories...just to remember the times when I was happy with them, especially when those happy moments have become less and less frequent.

Just like I can't just ignore tangles and split ends and frizz just because I'm attached to the length of my hair.


I feel like cutting my hair will be symbolic of the changes I want to make in my life.

Not just in learning how to let go, but for other reasons as well. I want to become a new person. A better person. I want to take all that I've learned and suffered through in my life and I want to mold that into the person I want to be.

I don't want to be held back by the past anymore. I don't want to be held back by the expectations and assumptions people have about me...I have of me...I want to be someone new.

I want to turn my suffering into strength.

If I recreate myself physically I feel like I can motivate myself mentally and emotionally as well.

At last...the Phoenix transformation personified.



I'm doing a lot of planning about the look I want. Everything from the cut to the exact color. This is a project for me; a piece of art. I'm taking a lot of pride in this creation because I want to take a lot of pride in myself, in who I am.

Does this sound vain?

Maybe.

Maybe it is considered vain to put so much effort in one's physical appearance but my opinions on that have really changed lately. As an artist I know that there is so much power in visuals. This is true for art...why should it not be true for the way that we look as well?

The cut and color I want represents the person I want to be.

I want it short. I want to cut away the past, all the heaviness that has been dragging me down. I want to be light as possible so I can reach out and touch the stars! I want to be sprightly an energetic.

I want to be cute.

I never wanted to be sexy or hot or pretty or sexy or beautiful, gorgeous, or even attractive. All I ever wanted was to be cute. The most flattering compliments to me are when I'm called cute.

There's innocence in cute. There's whimsy, and cheerfulness, and imagination, and purity in cute. There's a childlike nature in cute...a nature I want to hold on to for as long as I can.

Everything else is too grown-up, too adult, too frightening. I hear it and I just feel sad. I developed too fast. I had to grow up too fast. I just want to be cute.

The color I want is a winey reddish purple. It's a colour I've loved since seeing it on the petals of some roses in Central Park one summer. Roses alone are pretty special to me, but the colors that blend to make my desired hair color are all very important. Violet, the color of complete understanding and bliss. Purple, the color of creativity, and thought, and wisdom, and sight, and perception. Red, the color of stability, of family, of survival. All those colours combined is exactly what I want and need.


My mom's Xmas present to me this year is a trip to the salon. I don't think she has any idea how much that means to me.